We've heard a lot about various universities using iPods to give their students lectures and other school-related content. But this is something new.
Stanford University has announced Stanford on iTunes. Faculty lectures, music, sporting events, and more are available for free download — not just to students, but to anyone with iTunes.
This is a unique use of the iTunes/iPod technology that I'm hoping many schools will emulate. It would be easy to put a lecture series on iTunes a few months after the series is presented on campus, so that people on the other side of the country can enjoy them. Concerts can also be broadcast to family, friends, and alumni around the world easily. It's also useful PR — curious about what the professors are like at a school? Hit their iTunes page and download a lecture or two, and find out whether you really want to go there.
On a personal note, my own school (Southern Seminary) keeps an archive of speakers and chapel messages. This kind of page at iTunes would be a perfect way to make these archives even easier to get to. Many schools all over the country (all over the world) routinely record special speakers and lectures, as well as concert series. This innovative idea will hopefully make these resources available to more people than just curious alumni.
Article comments
1 - Tan The Man
Interesting... just audio or video too?
2 - Warren
Looks like just audio right now, but the potential for video is there.
Think about the potential for distance learning.
3 - Triniman
There's a plugin for Winamp that lets you load songs onto an iPod. I wonder if you can visit multiple computers and load up songs without having any of the songs dumped by the iPod, like it would do if you had used iTunes.
4 - Jeff
And you can use DOT-TUNES to share the tracks:
http://www.dottunes.net